2008

Media X

Media X presents the work of 9 international artists who use daily news feeds and streaming information to tell the story of current news across the world. The artists rearrange, uncover, and manipulate the streaming information acquired through news sources to bring awareness to the way in which the news media presents information and how we accumulate it.
In organizing Media X, curator Vaughn Whitney Garland wanted to expose the over whelming confusion created by the questionable practices of the news media and how it directs attention away from the primary topic.
The artists in the exhibition re-appropriate streaming news formats and manipulate its visual vocabulary. Commenting on, exploring and documenting the media's placement of information, the work in Media X exposes a visual crossover between what we are shown in the news and what we aren't. The artists turn the tables on the media machine with a mirrored documentation that represents the misdirected and multi-layered presence in our fast paced media driven world.

Buckets of Water

Heather Gray, Lynn Gufeld, Jody Hays, and Susann Whittier

Co-Curated with Brad Birchett

Red Door Gallery

Richmond, VA

The four artists featured in Red Door Gallery’s Buckets of Water together are collectors, makers, voyeurs, painters, weavers, photographers, sculptors, performers, and story tellers. As each individual practice of interacting with the work breaks down to a specific “way in the world” they as a group expose an overlapping consciousness that is both intertwined and juxtaposed. Like the withdrawn and strangely lonesome natural landscape of the Southern Gothic novel where the main focus rests on sense of place, strong family relationships, and a rich tapestry of language and character; these artists relive a solitary and magicalmoment of exploring space and palette in hopes that a higher understanding of identity may arise. Each individual seems to work their way through a chosen narrative as one might meticulously discern how to best maneuver the hand to master a task.

2006

Dispersal Tactics

This “drawing” show by co-curators Vaughn W. Garland and Ryan Mulligan is an effort to discover what drawing can be both as a verb and a noun. Vaughn and Ryan, both M.F.A. graduates of Virginia Commonwealth University Painting and Printmaking Department, asked artists not normally associated with two-dimensional mediums to explore drawing issues in contemporary areas of practice and communication. Brian Blomerth’s large-scale installation is an obsessive infatuation with unicorn–horned narwhals and wizard beards. Sayaka Suzuki uses the power of perspective to travel through the walls of the gallery in a train, both figuratively and literally. Peter Baldes, professor of Digital Media for VCU, is cooling off the hotornot.com website with an oscillating fan, and drawing energy from computer monitors with solar cells, all in an effort to power a wind generated diorama. His poetic sculptures relish glitches and “faulty code.” If drawing is about movement, then Rachel Riley’s forceful flowcharts of conversations and encounters diagram emotional misunderstandings with a typographer’s sensibility. If drawing is accumulated marks then Jacq Crowley’s giant floating clover fields stake claim over the gallery walls. For the past two years Jack Crowley has covered yards in clover in an effort to discover what a weed truly is. And finally if drawing is about history, then Chris Barr’s videos are haunting meditations about death and grief filled with historical references in guttural honesty. In a set of 60 + videos Chris stands silently beside a tree for 17 minutes only to abruptly fall to the ground in a performance that references his brother’s suicide. The extreme weather conditions of Buffalo set the backdrop for a charged viewing experience.

Outdoor Sculpture Invitational was an exhibition of temporary public sculpture that took place in the economically depressed Manchester district of Richmond, Virginia. Each installation remained a focal point for the district and the city for three months each year. Awarded Virginia Commission for the Arts community grant.

Outdoor Sculpture Invitational was an exhibition of temporary public sculpture that took place in the economically depressed Manchester district of Richmond, Virginia. Each installation remained a focal point for the district and the city for three months each year.